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What is a shark?

What is the percentage of shark bites per year relative to the number of people in the ocean?

  • There is a great poster that shows that you are far more likely to get killed in a car accident than by shark bite. You're more likely to be in a plane crash! You are more likely to be struck by lightening. As I saw that though it made me wonder, how many sharks take flights? (I'm being humorously serious) The lighting strike makes sense as that's relative to the entire population but you can drastically change the likelihood of the car crash by not getting in a car or going near traffic. You can nearly eliminate the possibility of dying in a plane by not flying. I'm pretty sure you can entirely avoid a shark bite by not going in the water. So the poster, while thought provoking and incredibly valuable given how safe it actually is to be near sharks, isn't exactly reflective of reality. It isn't representing each thing relative to the population subject to that experience. I'm sure the likelihood is still low but what really matters is how likely you are to be bitten by a shark when in the ocean. So, relative to the annual ocean going population (not people that go to the beach but actually get in the water) how likely is a shark bite? While we're at it, what about a jellyfish sting? Those things freak me out.

  • Answer:

    You are more likely in the USA to die by a soda machine falling on you than by shark attack, with 16 kills for soda and 12 kills for sharks in one year, and only about 20% of those attacked die - out of about 100 attacked out of 7 billion people, so super low chance (you can do the math).

Joseph Dedrick at Quora Visit the source

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The international shark attack file does address this issue. The data is a little old but effectively illustrates the point as the numbers have not changed much. For the 2013 stats see http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/2013Summary.html The short answer is that the odds of being bitten by a shark are still quite low, even accounting for the number of people who access the ocean. https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/isaf/moreattacks.htm In the year 2000, there were ~40 shark encounters per 120 million beach goers in the USA. Some may have been bitten, but the data does not specify - the term "attack" is also used to record being brushed against by a shark who doesn't bite. https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/USAbeachattacks.htm As the population increases, there is also an increase in the number of people who report being bitten due to the rise in ocean usage. A better comparison in terms of risk is relative to the likelihood of drowning. Drowning: 1 in 2 million Shark attack 1 in 11.5 million https://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/beachattacks.htm Hope this helps you feel safer about going in the ocean. My experience has been that sharks fearsome reputation is largely unfounded as they much prefer dead or dying seafood to something unfamiliar like a human. Like any apex predator, sharks have the capability to cause real damage to a human but unlike a lion, a bear or a tiger, going into their domain is pretty safe because they don't recognize people as a food source.

Bianca McCartt

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